According to Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas, the action taken by Austrian Minister of Agriculture Andrä Rupprechter with relation to the Hungarian Land Act is yet another unfriendly step on the part of his Austrian counterpart.

Andrä Rupprechter said in Brussels on Wednesday that the European Commission had made an official promise to Austria that it would examine the disputed new Hungarian Land Act. According to the Austrian Minister for Agriculture, he was informed of this in an official letter from EU Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Cioloş. Mr. Rupprechter called this "an important intermediary step". EU Commissioner for Internal Market Michel Barnier, with whom Mr. Rupprechter has already spoken, has authority over the case.

Speaking to Hungarian news agency MTI, Sándor Fazekas stressed that "this is a Hungarian issue, which we must settle", adding that he still does not feel the need for bilateral talks in view of the fact that the Austrian Minister is "constantly insulting the Hungarians and constantly making official complaints about us" instead of accepting the fact that it is Hungary's task, and not Austria's to put its land issues in order.

The Act concerns the violation and circumvention of laws and a practice that has been gong on for years and decades, and which will now be eliminated. In the view of Mr. Fazekas, Mr. Rupprechter is defending fraudsters instead of accepting that Austrian laws must be obeyed by everyone in Austria, while Hungarian laws must be adhered to by everyone in Hungary.

"He is protecting illegal land use contracts, people who have attempted to circumvent Hungarian laws, including the moratorium on the acquisition of farmland by foreign nationals, of which everyone was aware, investors and speculators alike", he said.

"We stand by the Hungarian viewpoint and we are capable of protecting it before the Commission and on other forums too, if needed", Minister Fazekas declared.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)